Category: What Narcissistic Abuse Feels Like

I understand everything now. It feels like a grenade just went off. The shrapnel is falling, scattering, and all of the clues are flooding into the right cracks all at once, but too quickly for me to absorb each in isolation. I begged you for answers so many times. But how could I have expected you to give them to me when you did not understand any point of view other than your own? You could not find the disconnect between our perspectives anymore than I could, so how could you provide any answers other than the ones you had...

I almost got away from my narcissist ex in the summer of 2015.  Everything changed in the span of two weeks starting Memorial weekend that year. My ex-boyfriend had hurt me in almost every way you can possibly hurt someone, and during those two weeks I either found out about it or I endured it, and things were never the same.  I was never the same. It wasn’t even the things he’d done, it was the complete lack of empathy he’d displayed to me in those moments and I couldn’t reconcile it with the person I’d known. I’ll never forget my...

Earlier this year, I had a ribcage injury involving a couple of my ribs. Thankfully, it wasn’t as serious as I thought it was going to be at first, but breathing and sleeping were pretty painful and difficult for the first couple of weeks especially and it took about six weeks for me to feel completely back to normal again. The injury was accidental and occurred because of my own stupidity. “Did anyone give you this injury? Push you? Hit you?” They kept asking at the hospital, and I knew what they really wanted to know. I thought of everything...

There was one clear moment when I knew I had been in a psychologically abusive relationship. It happened when I heard the soft *ding* coming from my phone beside me to let me know I had a text and my first instinct had been fear. The fear was not that the text would be from him.  It was fear at the announcement that I was being contacted, and what the implications of an announcement of that kind had often meant for me. I had just changed all of my phone settings back the way I wanted them permanently so that I could see and...

“Why are you so beautiful?” I never knew quite what to do with it when he said that to me. How do you answer a question like that? It wasn’t something he asked me a couple of times.  It was one of his favorite compliments.  I mean, I guess it was a compliment. I remember the first few times he asked, I would laugh and shake my head in amusement. It was a silly thing to say, really. A silly thing to ask. I always had the impression though that he was waiting for me to say something in response....

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.” -Sean Spicer, Press briefing, January 21, 2017 I was lounging around on my couch in the living room that Saturday night, exhausted after a long, strange weekend in the District, where the one-two punch of Donald Trump’s chaotic inauguration followed by the record-breaking Women’s March had brought the city to a point of fatigue and uncertainty.  The news was on and I, like a lot of the rest of the country at that time, could not stop watching it. It...

Okay, yes, he did say silly things like, “I know I’m going to be famous someday,” and “You’re lucky to have such a sexy boyfriend,” and “I look better than most of the guys that are in movies right now.” Mostly, I’d be amused. Sometimes I’d be annoyed. Often I’d find it intellectually curious. Did he really think these things or was he trying to convince himself? But I was often just confused: Is my boyfriend a narcissist or not? It wasn’t any annoying comments he made about his own appearance that finally forced me to face the painful truth.  ...